Charles O’Rear’s May 1972 shot of a salvage yard in Henderson, Nevada, taken for the Documerica project, is a little fuzzy in the details – presumably he was going for the overall shot rather than for the individual cars in the yard – but some of the shapes remain recognizable. What do you see here, and what would you give to be able to go through this salvage yard at the time of the photograph?

Ha! Some Google Maps satellite photos are clearer than this. That said, there’s some distinctive shapes in the yard. It’s interesting to see how blurry a photo of something needs to be before it becomes unidentifiable.

Sorry guys. My eyes ache something bad trying to make heads or tails of these cars, and I wear glasses. I spot what looks like a 53-54 Chevy but that’s it. I blew it up as large as I could, but to no avail.
You betcha Id love to comb this yard back in `72! Being NV., the metal is dry and rust-free. The only way Id go, is to be able to drive a flatbed so I could haul my spoils home!

I see what appears to be a green Step-down Hudson sedan just about dead center of the yard. There is also what I think is a 1958 Ford sedan on the left side just below that tower and a brown mid-’40s GM sedan just above the building in the bottom left corner.

Alas! I see nothing I can identify as a Studebaker. If anybody has better eyes than me, please let me know if you see one.

Red 1959 Chevy with white top and trunk, about 1/3 of the way in from the rust color pickup with the darker top that is just outside the lower fence. Say what you want about 59′s, they do stand out in a crowd.

I was in Las Vegas for a training class in early September 1972, and spent some time one Saturday checking out wrecking yards on the north and west sides of town. Being a license plate collector I was mainly interested in picking up Nevada plates, but I can certainly confirm that a lot of the cars I saw were rust-free. Of course there were a few fugitives from the midwest and east. Out in front of one of the yards there was a sage green and white 1957 DeSoto convertible that had just come in. It was complete and looked drivable. If I had only had a way to get it home and a place to put it….

This is an old school yard, like I remember spending time in in the 80′s working on my cars in HS. No discernible organization, cars on their tops & sides, some stacked, etc. Today’s yards seem to be more organized with warehouses for the resalable parts. I wonder how many let you wander around anymore.

I see what looks like a couple of Squarebirds. A red one with a Grey roof near the center about a third down from the top and a possible white one along the fence on the left just below that tower (that one might be a full sized Ford).

I see several Beetles scattered about and a few cars down from the white Squarebird on the left along the fence is what looks like a brown Citroen DS with a white roof.

That silver/metallic grey coupe on the outside of the fence is a ’59/’60 Cadillac!
The car in front of it with the missing front clip appears to be a ’66-7 GM A-body…or maybe a B-body. Looks large enough to be a Delta 88 or an Impala, but it could also be a Skylark or GTO! The mint-colored sedan behind it might be a ’55-7 Buick.

Yes, it IS possible to get BETTER resolution aerial photos! As a former GIS technician, I’m familiar with some aerial photographic methods, and there is what are known as ‘-foot resolutions”.
Here’s a definition I pulled off a website:
“With regard to vertical aerial photography, resolution (also called ground resolution or ground sample distance) refers to the area of ground covered by an individual pixel. In an image with 6 inch ground resolution, each pixel records the average reflected color of an area 6 inches by 6 inches. The fewer inches per pixel, the higher the resolution resolution of the image. The particular ground resolution is an important factor to decide upon when ordering vertical aerial images.”http://focalflight.com/imageresolution.html

I think the ‘standard’ for most aerial (shot from a plane) photography is what is known as ‘three-foot resolution’ or what the website calls ‘one-meter resolution’; The better the resolution, however, the more expensive the aerial photos! This is why most cities have only a ‘six-foot’ resolution, because they often aren’t that concerned with getting THAT much detail in the aerials!
“Six-inch resolution” is the result of some combination of either a very LOW shooting altitude (FAA regs come into play when doing aerials over densely populated areas!), or a very expensive camera/camera setting!

Sure are a LOT of WHITE cars in that photo!! Do I also detect a good number of BABY BLUE cars, too?!?